Like any good attorney, I enjoy winning and being right. However, as a transgender attorney watching the fallout from antitransgender legislation across the country spin out of control, this is one time I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to be wrong about the prediction that antitrans legislation and rhetoric would spur further discrimination and hostility towards all people, not just trans folks. Sadly, this hatred of trans people has had the exact result we anticipated: increased harassment of all people in bathrooms as well as continued pernicious violence against trans women.

Reports are rolling in from across the country of nontransgender women being policed and harassed in bathrooms. A 22-year-old Connecticut cisgender woman was harassed in a Wal-Mart bathroom this week because someone thought she was transgender. In Texas, where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been unapologetic in his transphobia, a Texas woman trying to use a women’s restroom in a hospital was accosted by a man twice her size trying to make sure she was “going in the right place,” all because she was wearing a baseball hat with short hair.

And, of course, the violence and harassment of trans women has not stopped or decreased. Earlier this month, trans woman Reese Walker was murdered in Wichita, Kansas, a state that proposed legislation awarding students a $2,500 bounty if they reported trans people in the restroom. In Florida this last week, beloved trans woman Mercedes Successful was found murdered in a huge blow to the LGBT community in Haines City, Florida.

In Washington, D.C., this week, where transgender people are protected from discrimination under city law, a trans woman was assaulted by a security guard at a Giant grocery store. “You guys cannot keep coming in here and using our women’s restroom,” the guard told her as she pushed her out of the store. “They did not pass the law yet.” Also, in New York City, trans woman Pearl Love was verbally and physically attacked by a nontranswoman on a subway train in a video that went viral and prompted a response from presidential candidate Hilary Clinton.

It seems like things are going to get quite worse for trans people before they get better.

Just last night, Oklahoma lawmakers introduced SB1619, which requires schools to provide students a “religious exemption” if they are offended by trans students in school bathrooms. The real kicker to this bill is that a reasonable accommodation for transphobic students is not a single-user bathroom — like trans students have been forced to use — but rather a multi-user “trans-free” restroom, again demonstrating that at the heart of these bills is a devaluation of trans youth’s very existence.

Despite the fact that actual problems face many state legislatures, states like Georgia and Tennessee are going out of their way to arrange special sessions to discuss barring trans people from bathrooms in schools and public places. And in Washington State, a hateful ballot initiative is gathering steam that, among other things, would nullify state laws protecting trans people from discrimination and allow students to sue schools for up to $2,500 if they encounter a trans person in a bathroom.

If the whirlwind of 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that transphobia hurts all of us. It makes our communities and schools less safe and more heavily policed; it continues to assure the public that violence and exclusion of trans people from public life is the status quo; and it prevents all students from focusing on their education — an education that should arguably include values such as acceptance and compassion.

We must continue to fight back against these hateful messages and realize supporting trans people means supporting everyone’s right to dignity and justice.

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Anonymous

There is something wrong with a man thinking he is a woman or a woman thinking she is a man. It is mutilation with dangerous hormones. Most transexuals were sexually abused in childhood which messed up their minds and transexuals sexually abuse children. Transexuals are mutilated gays and lesbians. I don’t care what others say but mutilating a man or woman to make them fake members of opposite sex is gay/lesbian. And gay/lesbian groups are apologists for Transexuals which is why the word T is there. They must abolish this surgical mutilation.

All transexuals are homosexual/lesbian as the act of mutilating to become false opposite sex is itself an act of homosexuality/lesbianism-sad maiming and make this illegal. Finally, sex change maimings which is mutilating some1 to make them fake members of opposite sex is comparable to trying to make a man a fake animal because he thinks he is an animal trapped in a human body. Most feminists are not speaking against this. 1 would hope that feminists would oppose the mutilation that happened to Chastity Sun Bono as feminists have spoken against Female Genital Mutilation which happens in some nations. Transexuals are mutilations which no Dr. should take part in, yet most feminists are not condemning this female genital and breast mutilation as what happened to Chastity S. Bono where her healthy breasts were mutilated, dangerous hormone shots and her genitals mutilated.

Anonymous

The amount of ignorance in this reply and blind hatred, just makes you look like a sad old ignorant man who reminds me of the racist from the 60s, you have no idea what you are talking about, and should probably be far more informed before you speak again. Your mother would be ashamed of you

May 24, 2016

12:28 PM

Alex

I'm a transgender woman and I have never been sexually abused, nor have I abused anybody.

As far as mutilation goes, if you consider hormones mutilating, does that include women that use hormone based birth control such as the pill? What about post-menopause women that use hormones to fix their levels of estrogen? What about people, both male and female, that use hormones to fix hormonal imbalances? What about the use of hormone-based drugs to help people with both curable and incurable diseases.

I won't talk about surgical transitions since not every transgender individual wants to have sex reassignment surgery, myself included. I know this will probably fall on deaf ears, but your naive and ignorant hate is sad.

May 24, 2016

3:35 PM

Anonymous

Men would like for pretty women like Katy E. Perry to go into men's bathrooms & men want to be able to go into women's bathrooms if there are pretty women in there. Men don't want other men shitting there & most men would rather see a pretty nude woman in men's bathroom & men want to go into women's bathrooms to see pretty women naked.

anonomous

Why don't they try porn,web cams,or even casual sex. It is more fun to do that then to look at women using the bathroom against their will. Lesbians don't do that, so why should men.

February 20, 2017

4:19 PM

Anonymous

I am not religious because among other things, if there's a God, then why do bad things happen in world I don't care about the gay/lesbian marriage topic which law allows and admit information war by my side was lost on homosexuality, when topic mainly became about the boring gay marriage topic and only once in a while about homosexuality's risks. Truth about homosexuality's dangers don't change and truth must be told though information war is lost. Homosexual/lesbian conduct is bad for health like tobacco & needs to be treated like tobacco use by adults. If willing & knowing adults want to use tobacco or do gay/lesbian conduct, then that's their life, but it must be treated as harmful like tobacco is. I know what APA, mainstream psychologists & psychiatrists say about gay/lesbian conduct, but they are ideologues. I think that they must make it a crime to do sex changes.

I have thought about this & don't think any1 can rebut conclusion that childhood sex abuse victims of gay/lesbian pedophiles have more risk of turning out gay/lesbian by copying the conduct they learned because think you know that conduct incl. sexual conduct can be learned. Think you know it is possible for people who are victims of same sex molestation (such as victims of gay pedophile priests) to copy this sexual conduct and do gay conduct in adulthood incl. turn out to be gay pedophiles.

Kathy Gray

I'm a transgender woman and I'm asexual. How am I gay?

July 25, 2016

12:27 AM

Anonymous

I'm a nonreligious person who sees something wrong with homosexual & lesbian conduct & I think that they must make it a crime to do sex changes. Even if orientation doesn’t change, it’s best for gays/lesbians to be celibate just as it’s best for a person with tobacco orientation not to smoke. If homosexuality is inborn as some scientists believe, then it would be a birth defect.

Never have I heard straights blame childhood sex abuse for reasons a man has sex with a woman and fathers children with her. Yet sometimes have heard gays and lesbians say childhood sex abuse is reason they do same sex behaviors. Sex abuse in youth can cause people to behave in ways. It’s not controversial to talk of nightmares, suicides, bed wetting often a result of sex abuse in youth. Yet when 1 talks gay/lesbian behaviors in adulthood because they learned this sexual behavior by being repeatedly molested, then gays with politically safe psychologists complain. The politically correct psychologists who deny this know it’s possible for a boy to turn out gay as a result of childhood sex abuse, yet deny what they know is true. Of course, not all who are sexually abused in youth become gay in adulthood-but the risk is higher.

Homosexual/lesbian conduct needs to be marginalized such as smoking/tobacco use is. I know my view offends homosexuals, but most smokers do not get offended by negative views of tobacco use. So homosexuals/lesbians have to hear others give negative views of their sex lives, because there is something wrong with this just as there’s something wrong with smoking.

Repair therapy for gays and lesbians who want to be straight must be available just as repair therapy must be available for a drug junky who wants to become clean. For a therapy to have best chance of success, the patient has to want it for themselves. If a person goes into therapy because he or she is pressured by peers into this, they are usu. not going to last long because they don’t sincerely want it. If a kid is a junky and he or she doesn’t want therapy to quit drugs, then it’s usu. going to fail because they don’t want it. You can not force a person into therapy minus a court order and even if you do, if they don’t sincerely want it, it’s usu. will fail. While repair therapy to treat gayism, lesbianism often fails, using what you ask, we also should not have repair therapy to treat smoking, drug junkyism, etc. because that often fails. Minors can not be forced into therapy against will-minus a court order such as requiring medicines for a minor who does not want medicines.

Yes, it should also be the right of homosexuals and lesbians not to go into repair therapy just as I support right of tobacco users not to have repair therapy to quit smoking and I support right of any lucid person to refuse medical care such as if a lucid person’s a heart attack victim and does not want open heart surgery, then it should be their right to refuse this. Yes, proof burden is on repair therapists, but if you aren’t going to have repair therapy for homsexuality/lesbianism, then you may as well not have repair therapy for drug junkyism or drunkardism, because such therapy often fails and high relapses. Is it possible for a homosexual or lesbian to change sexual behavior and sexual orientation to heterosexuality? There are gays and lesbians who sincerely believe they changed to heterosexuality and without contrary proof only they know.

Anonymous

Hey I appreciate the right to your opinion but it is insulting to hear what you have to say. You are definitely lacking in a education. Why are you concerned with people who want nothing to do with you. Why do you think you have the right to tell people that they're this or that? You are not asked for a diagnosis of people. Just keep your diagnoses to yourself. You are a very ignorant person if you think what you say has any bearing on the LGBTQ community. Please do something about your problems in your own time and stop wasting others.

July 23, 2016

1:40 AM

Anonymous

It’s no surprise that most journalists will give news which agrees with NLGJA & it’s news (as we see how most media is apologist for William Bruce Jenner) which omits facts which offend gays.

William Bruce Jenner could be called a homosexual lesbian (as all transexuals are homosexuals/lesbian) & William Bruce Jenner (Bruce Jenner) is a man & hormones + surgical maiming is not going to change his sex. Megyn M. Kelly & Meredith Vieira are full of shit for thinking that it’s ‘courageous’ to be mutilated & my guess is that both Megyn M. Kelly & Meredith Vieira want to fart & shit in the same toilet with William Bruce Jenner & compare their farts & turds to William Bruce Jenner’s (Bruce Jenner’s). All the women who are apologists for William Bruce Jenner all eat Wheaties and the women want to compare their turds to W. Bruce Jenner’s turds after they’ve eaten Wheaties. Perhaps want to take a dump in the same toilet with Bruce Jenner (William Bruce Jenner) in the women’s bathroom and compare turds to his. Let’s hope that William Bruce Jenner dies before he gets surgically mutilated. Transexuals molest children as those who think they’re fake opposite sex members see nothing wrong with child molestation.